It was a this-is-your-life kind of day for Tony Bozzella as he was introduced as the new women’s basketball coach at Seton Hall, his beloved alma mater, Wednesday.

Bozzella recalled attending a dorm room party during his freshman year and meeting his future wife, Maria. He recounted with a chuckle how he pursued her for six months before she finally agreed to go on a date with him.

“I wore her down,” he laughed.

Standing at the podium inside Walsh Gym, he pointed to where he sat while watching the Pirates battle the likes of St. John’s and Syracuse in epic games.

Bozzella even confessed to the utter heartbreak he felt three years ago when he learned that Seton Hall had called Iona in search of a basketball coach, but it was current Pirates men’s coach Kevin Willard, and not him.

“I was devastated,” he said. “But I didn’t know at the time they were talking to Anne Donovan.”

Wednesday, Bozzella officially got his dream job, replacing Donovan, who left after three seasons to coach the WNBA’s Connecticut Sun.

“It’s great to be here,” he said. “It is really home for me. This is where I became a man. It has really come full circle for me.”

Bozzella, 47, a 1988 Seton Hall graduate and Glen Cove, New York native, spent the past 11 seasons as head women’s basketball coach at Iona. After a rough start, he led the Gaels to six winning seasons in the past eight years, including a 20-13 mark this season and a berth in the WNIT.

Having rebuilt three different programs – Iona, Long Island University and Division II Southampton College of Long Island, Bozzella is returning to a Seton Hall that has made a commitment to turn its women’s basketball program into a winner in the newly-configured Big East.

To that end, the school is in the midst of a $20 million makeover to its athletic facilities to help recruiting for all sports. Those improvements include a fitness center for the general student body; a state-of-the-art training room that’ll include an underwater treadmill, cold tubs, hot tubs and new offices; an academic center for student-athletes; a new weight room and a new locker room for the Olympic sports.

“The commitment is resources, resources, resources and I have all the resources I need,” Bozzella said.

Bozzella inherits a scrappy team that finished 11-20 last season, one that returns star sophomore point guard Ka-Deidre Simmons and 6-2 forward Sidney Cook, a Top-50 recruit who missed all of last season with a foot injury.

“This isn’t going to be a long-term process,” said Bozzella, who plans to recruit heavily in New Jersey. “I want to compete right away.”

The arrival of Bozzella marks the third time in three years that Seton Hall has hired a basketball coach or athletic director from Iona. Willard left Iona for Seton Hall in 2010 and Lyons the following year.

“I firmly believe that whoever the Seton Hall AD would be right now, we would be introducing the same person,” Setin Hall athletic director Pat Lyons said. “I knew I would be criticized for this hire. But Tony came with in a passion for women’s basketball and wowed everybody on the search committee. He was a unanimous choice.”